by day past a black cavern mouth, and thinks, with a
shudder--Something ugly may live in that ugly hole: what if it
jumped out upon me? He broods over the thought with the intensity
of a narrow and unoccupied mind; and a few nights after, he has
eaten--but let us draw a veil before the larder of a savage--his
chin is pinned down on his chest, a slight congestion of the brain
comes on; and behold he finds himself again at that cavern's mouth,
and something ugly does jump out upon him: and the cavern is a
haunted spot henceforth to him and to all his tribe. It is in vain
that his family tell him that he has been lying asleep at home all
the while. He has the evidence of his senses to prove the contrary.
He must have got out of himself, and gone into the woods. When we
remember that certain wise Greek philosophers could find no better
explanation of dreaming than that the soul left the body, and
wandered free, we cannot condemn the savage for his theory.

Now, I submit that in these simple facts we have a group of "true
causes" which are the roots of all the superstitions of the world.

And if any one shall complain that I am talking materialism: I
shall answer, that I am doing exactly the opposite. I am trying to
eliminate and get rid of that which is material, animal, and base;
in order that that which is truly spiritual may stand out, distinct
and clear, in its divine and eternal beauty.

To explain, and at the same time, as I think, to verify my
hypothesis, let me give you an example--fictitious, it is true, but
probable fact nevertheless; because it is patched up of many
fragments of actual fact: and let us see how, in following it out,
we shall pass through almost every possible form of superstition.

Suppose a great hollow tree, in which the formidable wasps of the
tropics have built for ages. The average savage hurries past the
spot in mere bodily fear; for if they come out against him, they
will sting him to death; till at last there comes by a savage wiser
than the rest, with more observation, reflection, imagination,
independence of will--the genius of his tribe.

The awful shade of the great tree, added to his terror of the wasps,
weighs on him, and excites his brain. Perhaps, too, he has had a
wife or a child stung to death by these same wasps. These wasps, so
small, yet so wise, far wiser than he: they fly, and they sting.
Ah, if he could fly and sting; how he would kill and eat, and live
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